Rethinking the Way We Gather Academic Reorganization of the Faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences Contents Executive Summary I. Background 2 II. Charge and Process of ASARC 3 III. Data Interpretation and Research Findings 4 The Faculty Survey 4 Divisional Models at other Institutions 4 Addressing Campus Inefficiencies 5 IV. Proposed Model: Divisional Advisory Committees 5 Features of the DAC Model 7 DAC Membership and Leadership 7 DAC Functions Broken Down by Task 7 Proposed DAC Calendar 8 Benefits of DAC model 8 V. Continuous Improvements in Technology 8 VI. Equity in Faculty Committee Service 9 VII. Compensation and Workload Reduction for Chairs of Academic Departments and Programs 10 New Chair Compensation Model 10 VIII. Centralization of Tasks 11 IX. Reduction in Operational Costs through Administrative Restructuring 11 X. Implementation: Fostering Bottom-up Collaboration 12 XI. Next Steps 12 XII. FAQs 12 XIII. Appendix 15 Arts & Sciences Administrative Reorganization Committee (ASARC) Oberlin College | Final Report | CF Endorsed | May 6, 2020 Committee Members: Cynthia Chapman, Professor, Religion, ASARC Co-Chair (EPPC) Matthew Elrod, Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry, ASARC Co-Chair (CFC) David Kamitsuka, Dean, Arts & Sciences Laura Baudot, Associate Dean, Arts & Sciences Julia Christensen, Associate Professor, Studio Art Sebastiaan Faber, Professor, Hispanic Studies Elizabeth Hamilton, Associate Dean, Arts & Sciences Caitlin Kelley, Class of 2020, Student Senate Leslie Kwakye, Associate Professor, Neuroscience Amy Margaris, Associate Professor, Anthropology Renee Romano, Professor, History Michael Parkin, Professor, Politics Christopher Trinacty, Associate Professor, Classics Rethinking the Way We Gather EXECUTIVE SUMMARY in savings) through a decline, over the next four years, in the number of Administrative and Professional Staff and The Arts & Sciences Academic Reorganization Committee, or Administrative Assistant positions, achieved as much as possible ASARC, proposes a suite of organizational and operational changes through attrition. to enhance the quality of our academic programs, improve our capacity to respond to rapid changes in the landscape of higher education, and realize substantial cost savings. These changes I. BACKGROUND work in concert to facilitate cross-departmental and inter-office The Arts & Sciences Administrative Reorganization Committee collaboration while prioritizing our educational mission and (ASARC) has been charged with exploring and developing an maintaining departmental identity. implementation plan in response to the recommendation in the One Oberlin final report for an academic reorganization of the ASARC proposes that departmental representatives convene in five College of the Arts & Sciences. The One Oberlin Report, which Divisional Advisory Committees, or DACs, in the Natural Sciences was endorsed by the General Faculty and the Board of Trustees, and Mathematics, Social Sciences, the Practicing Arts, Languages proposed a model for the “creation of new academic divisions that and Cultures, and the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences, would organize and undertake much of the outward-facing work groupings based on curricular affinity and shared reliance on now taking place at the departmental level with varying degrees facilities or event and performance programming. DACs will be of effectiveness.” That model envisioned six to eight divisions led by conveners and will meet monthly for strategic consultation, overseeing much of the work that now typically takes place at the collaboration, and coordination of curricular and broader department level: equipment maintenance, budget management, institutional initiatives. They will serve as a communications catalog copy, and space use among others. The proposed model hub between departments and administrative offices including reduced the role of department chairs, creating instead department Admissions, Advancement, Communications, Facilities, the heads who would assist divisional chairs but who would not receive AARC, the Career Development Center, and the A&S Dean’s office. stipends or course releases for their work. With this model, the DACs will consult and where appropriate collaborate on position AAPR sought to achieve four important broad goals: requests, event planning, and mentoring of junior faculty. DACs will share best practices across departments to improve quality, 1. Increase inter- and multidisciplinary collaboration for both increase efficiency, and expand interdisciplinary collaboration for teaching and scholarship while respecting the strengths of teaching and scholarship. The main purpose of the DACs will be intensive disciplinary education; to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of decision-making and 2. Increase the College of Arts & Science’s ability to adapt information-sharing among and between departments and central rapidly and comprehensively to the ever-changing academic offices, so that Arts & Sciences, and Oberlin College as a whole, are environment and capitalize on new opportunities; in a better position to weather the difficult times ahead. 3. Improve the overall quality and consistency of academic administration, including the collaboration with the In support of the DAC model, ASARC proposes the following conservatory and non-academic units across the institution, and additional changes: enhance communications across campus as well as develop better • Continuous improvement in technology to streamline time- messaging about our high quality to the world; consuming mundane work for faculty related to the processes of personnel review, position requests, and reimbursement. 4. Enhance administrative efficiencies so as to realize substantial reductions to baseline operating costs and increase access to • A model for equity in faculty committee service that introduces classes through the reduction of faculty course releases for a point system to bring transparency to formal committee administration. service. • A new chair compensation model to achieve equity and The model also sought to achieve the following concrete outcomes: transparency and reduce the number of chair course releases • Saving roughly $750,000 per year (preliminary estimate) to accommodate an increase in the number of Arts & Sciences achieved through consolidation of administrative staffing students. The reduction in course releases is paired with a made possible by greater administrative efficiency and greater reduction of chair workload. utilization of technologies that can support such needs; • The centralization of tasks through the creation of offices for • Recovering four full-time equivalents (FTE) amounting to 18 travel and event planning, billing, and reimbursement. courses in department chair course releases, which: a) reduces • Reduction in operational costs (constituting about $750,000 the need for visiting professors; b) adds potential support for 2 ACADEMIC REORGANIZATION OF THE FACULTY IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES Rethinking the Way We Gather the First Year Seminar Program; c) adds teaching capacity barriers to the kind of flexibility and nimbleness that institutions for the 100-student addition to the College (shift from the will need to survive in the competitive landscape of higher Conservatory) d) helps alleviate problems with access to classes, education. Peter Stokes and Chris Slatter, managers in the higher especially for first and second years; education practice at Huron Consulting Group, argue that “departmental structures can be inflexible and inhibit creative • Enhancing the breadth of consultation on future strategic responses to changing market expectations.” The faculty response additions and reductions of faculty lines; to anticipated structural change is often to “hunker down,” they • Reducing administrative redundancies and inefficiencies across suggest, with many faculty members and department chairs the Arts & Sciences that needlessly consume faculty and staff seeking “to preserve the structures that they know rather than risk time and effort and reduce job satisfaction; reorganizing in ways that merge departments or explicitly require • Enhancing engagement with alumni across the Arts & Sciences collaboration with the professional disciplines—even if such as well as better communication strategies to convey our high changes might deliver more value to the students.” 2 Daniel Rich, quality to the world. provost of the University of Delaware and professor of urban affairs, public policy, and political science, describes universities as “places The AAPR recommendation for academic restructuring reflects at which large numbers of faculty and students study change, debate a challenging truth about the state of higher education: given the change, and sometimes advocate change, but they are also places current landscape, only institutions that can adapt quickly and where faculty are renowned for avoiding and resisting change, thoughtfully to changes in the environment are likely to survive. particularly change in their own organization and operations.” The AAPR recognized that the mounting challenges facing small Restructuring, Rich notes, must balance maintaining academic core private liberal arts colleges like Oberlin make it urgent that we priorities with increasing market competitiveness, but restructuring take action to make our processes and structures more nimble. in some fashion may no longer be a choice. As Rich notes, “the A looming enrollment crisis—the number of college-age